The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : 13 % growth in suburban railway passenger growth

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Tuesday, Aug 19, 2008
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

13 % growth in suburban railway passenger growth

S. Vydhianathan

“Number of MRTS passengers has risen to 28,000”

CHENNAI: The Chennai Division of Southern Railway has recorded 13 per cent growth in passenger traffic in suburban section and on an average one million passengers travel in a day in EMU trains in the division. The combined growth rate of suburban and non-suburban is 11 per cent.

Talking to The Hindu, Divisional Railway Manager S. K. Kulshrestha said that in the suburban sections the total number of passengers in the first four months of 2008-09 was 1,149 lakh as against 1,039 lakh during the same period in the last financial year. In the case of non-suburban passengers it was 316 lakh against 286 lakh in the previous year. Total passenger earnings in the first four months, up to July, were Rs.310 crore as against Rs.255 crore in the corresponding period last year.

In mass rapid transit system (MRTS), the number of passengers increased from 12,000 to 28,000 and Velachery station had become popular among commuters. He was confident that passenger patronage would increase substantially if MRTS was extended to St.Thomas Mount, work for which was going on.

Even though Chennai Division is passenger-oriented, it has been doing well in freight traffic also. The division has been given a target of 19 million tonnes for the current financial year and so far it had transported 5.55 million tonnes of cargo in the first four months as against 5.4 million tonnes in the same period last year. As petroleum companies were moving oil through pipelines, the division had lost a substantial traffic. But this was compensated to a certain extent by cement and iron ore movement. Iron ore exporters used to load their consignments from stations in South Western and South Central Railways for transporting it to Chennai Port. Due to heavy pressure in these stations, exporters were now preferring Melapakkam near Arakkonam in the division to load their consignment.

Total earnings (freight and passenger) in the first four months were Rs.572 crore as against Rs.511 crore during the same period last year. The division had been given a target of Rs 1,845 crore for the current financial year.

As the suburban traffic had been on the increase, the division wanted to reduce the pressure on manual booking windows. A special drive was launched in July to popularise smart cards with the help of commercial staff and Scouts and Guides of Southern Railway.

Due to the special drive, the division was able to sell 350 smart cards a day compared to 115 cards previously. Total number of cards sold till July was 11,000 and the earnings through sale of smart cards was Rs 11.18 lakh and the tickets worth Rs 37.95 lakh were sold through smart cards, he added.

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